Art reveals other side of business students

April 17, 2014

Edelawit Hussien for WSN

The Stern Art Gallery held its first annual show this year to recognize the creativity and artistic talent of the student body. Two rooms featured paintings, collages, photographs and more from a variety of Stern undergraduates.

The event is the first of its kind to recognize the hidden potential of some of NYU’s business students. Senior and co-founder Adrienne Liu said the idea came quite sporadically to her and her two co-founders.

“We actually thought about this about a year ago, and we wanted it to get done last spring,” Liu said.

The team brought the idea to Akiko Yamaguchi, the head of the office of student engagement.

“None of this would be possible without Akiko Yamaguchi,” co-founder and senior Nicholas Wang said.

While Yamaguchi may have helped the students throughout the process, the three put in an incredible amount of work that certainly paid off. Third co-founder and senior Noah Sperber said the past three weeks required a lot of preparation.

“Every weekend has been devoted to something art gallery,” Sperber said. “Three weekends ago we gave the structures a try [and] put them through a trial run. Two weekends ago, we bought the rest of the materials and did a trial run of hanging up more art.”

The range of pieces showed an astounding amount of passion, from freshman Amy Wang’s haunting painting “Calypso” to senior Emanuel Hahn’s photographs like “Front Rows to the Liberty Show,” that captured the urban beauty of the city.

Hahn expressed his personal appreciation for the event.

“In school, you’re taught concepts that are fixed and entrenched in academia, but outside, you’re allowed to be creative, try new things and break the rules sometimes,” Hahn said. “So I definitely really like this art gallery, and I hope they do it every year.”

Photographer Nilay Shah, a junior studying finance, discovered his father’s old camera at a young age. Shah said the event had a lot of meaning to the whole NYU community.

“It’s amazing because I personally know that there’s so much talent here that has nothing to do with finance, marketing or whatever,” Shah said. “It’s a testament to the fact that we are creative people, too … and we don’t have to be these boring, finance-y, super professional type of people.”

As for the future of the event, the co-founders are already one step ahead.

“We’ve also prepared for it to be a sustainable event [because] we brought some younger underclassmen who help us out with setting it up so they can see behind the scenes, what work needs to get done when and what priorities are important,” Sperber said.

Among those hoping to continue the legacy of recognizing Stern’s artistic side through the event is junior and featured artist Denise Zhu.

“I think probably me and a few other juniors will try and take this over next year and put one on probably every year,” Zhu said. “I’m really excited to see where it goes.”

A version of this article appeared in the Thursday, April 17 print edition. David Bologna is a staff writer. Email him at features@nyunews.com.